Group pitches energy plan
Ontario energy companies, consumers search for smart solution
Canada’s most populous province has had a chequered history with electricity policy, due in no small part to some politically charged decisions.
Now, a coalition of major energy companies and consumers is pitching Ontario on a process that would try to keep politicians and regulators in their respective lanes.
Recommendations made Thursday by the Ontario Electricity Stakeholders Alliance could be viewed as somewhat self-serving — groups involved in the effort may have members interested in winning government contracts or paying less for power — but the coalition says their framework “provides the roadmap Ontario needs for smart electricity decisions through the principles of transparency, competition, objectivity and independence.”
The timing of the suggestions is interesting, as Ontario is about seven months out from its next provincial election, slated for June 2018. They also come as industrial electricity prices in the province are set to climb over the coming years.
“All three main political parties have at one point in Ontario’s history struggled tremendously with energy planning,” noted the alliance in a release.
One of the suggestions made by the coalition was for the government to stick to providing “broad, overall electricity policy direction and goals.“
When it comes to carrying out government policy, that “should be left to properly resourced independent agencies,” the group says, such as the Ontario Energy Board and Independent Electricity System Operator, which can be held to account by the provincial legislature.
And when those provincial energy agencies do take meetings with Ontario government officials, the regulators should reveal — “in a timely manner” — what was talked about and who attended, the association said.
“We’re trying to move away from the blurred lines between the policy and the implementation, “said Vince Brescia, president and chief executive of the Ontario Energy Association, a member of the alliance.
The group also recommended that the government should “reinvigorate independent sector oversight with an appropriately resourced” Ontario Energy Board, the regulator of the electricity and natural gas industries in the province.
The stakeholder alliance is made up of 19 different groups, including ones for farmers, hoteliers, power producers, and regional chambers of commerce. Two of the groups involved are the Ontario Energy Association — whose members include publicly traded companies such as Enbridge Inc., Hydro One Ltd. and TransCanada Corp. — and the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, which represents more than 10,000 firms across the country.
While the Ontario government’s recently updated long-term energy plan said the province’s industrial electricity consumers currently face prices lower than that of the average for the Great Lakes region, the plan also showed that the cost will rise to $116 per megawatt hour by 2035, a nearly 40 per cent increase from the projected 2017 price of $83 per megawatt hour.
Brescia noted that the energy sector is undergoing technological change, and that the provincial government is saddled with tough decisions on the electricity file, which requires an engaged legislature.
“There’s just no way to remove politics from those decisions,” he said. “And so what we speak to in our recommendations is the way in which decisions get made.”
One recommendation by the alliance takes aim at Ontario government energy policy that could also double as climate policy, as the province has curtailed greenhouse gas emissions coming from the electricity sector by closing coal-fired power plants, invested in costly solar and wind energy projects, and instituted a capand-trade system that requires businesses to buy permits to cover their carbon emissions.
“Policies and programs to achieve climate change objectives should be compared and evaluated based on their economy wide costs and benefits, and not be targeted specifically to the energy sector in isolation from other sectors,” suggested the alliance.